MIZUNO REPLICATION AND MATERIALS ONLY

    Quote from LENR Calender

    (1) I suppose that there is a prep process and an amount of baking out time that you would find reasonable in order to get a decontaminated reactor if you didn't have mass spec (just like Deneum did).


    How can you tell it is "reasonable"? This is like saying you can see whether the floor is clean or dirty in a pitch black room. When you have no instrument to detect contamination, how can decide whether there is contamination? By ESP?



    Quote from LENR Calender

    If you follow the process in (1) and find out that your reactor is still not ready according to (2), then that is evidence that replicators need mass spec.


    Or, it is evidence there is some other problem. You have no means of knowing whether the problem is -- or is not -- contamination.



    Quote from LENR Calender

    I suppose it would be a bit anecdotal and subjective, but better than nothing.


    No, it is worse than nothing. You are saying it is better to flail around in the dark, making mistakes and wasting time with anecdotes and subjective guesses, rather than using the correct instruments.


    This is the 21st century. Use modern instruments. There is no reason to be "anecdotal and subjective" when you can use an instrument to see what the situation is.


    I cannot understand why anyone would try to do an experiment without the proper equipment. If you cannot afford the equipment, or you don't know how to use it, why would you even try to do the experiment? It seems like a waste of time and effort to me.



    I think you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that anyone not use their mass spec. I am suggesting that Alan demonstrate the need for a mass spec.


    Deneum certainly thought they did a reasonable job at degassing. I suggest showing that they are wrong.


    Certainly anyone running this experiment will make a reasonable guess as to when they will check if the reactor has degassed. Then they will look at their mass spec data and possibly see they were wrong. That's the kind of anecdotal data I was suggesting sharing.


    We can have people saying that you need a mass spec, or we can have data actually demonstrating it. I like the data better.

    Quote from LENR Calender

    I think you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that anyone not use their mass spec. I am suggesting that Alan demonstrate the need for a mass spec.


    Mizuno demonstrated the need for a mass spec many times. He found contamination in the cell even after purging it with clean gas. He had to repeat that several times, and then he had to bake out the cell several times. Without a mass spec he wouldn't have known there was still contamination. Ed Storms and others told me they had similar experiences.


    Doing this experiment without a mass spec is like trying to study amoebas without a microscope. You can barely see the little devils!



    Quote from LENR Calender

    We can have people saying that you need a mass spec, or we can have data actually demonstrating it. I like the data better.


    I doubt there will be data actually demonstrating anything from people who do not have the proper instruments, and people who are not skilled in the art. At best, they will accomplish nothing. At worst, they will give the impression there may be something wrong with the original experiment. Dozens of amateurs floundering around without proper instruments will probably cause more harm than good. What "data" can you get when you cannot even see critical parameters? What would be the use of this report: "I think I saw something move. It might be an amoeba, or it might be a speck of dust. I can't tell."


    Of course, I might be wrong. As I said, this experiment might be easier and more forgiving than Mizuno or I realize. No one has ever done it without a mass spec. Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps you can bake it out for 72 hours (or whatever) and that really does eliminate all contamination. I wouldn't know. But here is what I do know: Mizuno, Storms and others have sometimes had to repeatedly bake out samples, day after day, continuing for weeks, before finally reducing contamination to the low levels recommended in the paper. So I doubt we can be sure 72 hours is sufficient.


    Also, sometimes you find that baking too soon permanently glues the contamination to cell wall, and it keeps leaking into the system. Several people have told me that. Again, I am no expert, but that's what they say. I think it is good idea to listen to experts.

    From the video, I gather Deneum is are trying to measure heat with a single thermocouple on the outside of the reactor. This is a bad idea. As I said in the paper, you should use a calorimeter. If they were to get ~100 W of excess heat I suppose they could detect it with a single thermocouple, but it seems unlikely to me they will get that much heat in the first attempt. I suppose that at best they will see 5 or 10 W, the same as Mizuno saw last year. You cannot detect that with a single thermocouple.


    Someone told me they would be disappointed if their replication produced only 5 or 10 W. That makes no sense to me. Any certain level of excess heat, even 1 W, is as good as 3 kW from a scientific point of view. It proves the effect is real, and that Mizuno's larger results are real. You can work from that to recapitulate Mizuno's efforts over the last few years to gradually ramp up to 100 W, and then 3 kW. It will take you a year or so, I suppose, because this is fundamental research into a phenomenon that no one understands.


    Someone suggested that a "valid replication" would have to be 100 W. I said that would be a miracle, not a replication.


    People should have realistic goals, and they should use every necessary tool to achieve them, from a mass spectrometer to an air-flow (or Seebeck) calorimeter. Taking shortcuts and leaving out essential steps and instruments makes it unlikely you will succeed. As I said, perhaps you will succeed if this experiment turns out to be much easier and more forgiving than Mizuno and I think it is.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Mizuno, Storms and others have sometimes had to repeatedly bake out samples, day after day, continuing for weeks, before finally reducing contamination to the low levels recommended in the paper. So I doubt we can be sure 72 hours is sufficient.


    Also, sometimes you find that baking too soon permanently glues the contamination to cell wall, and it keeps leaking into the system. Several people have told me that. Again, I am no expert, but that's what they say. I think it is good idea to listen to experts.

    That is why anyone expecting to perform this experiment in one week is operating in the wrong time frame. Plan to purge many times and

    From p. 2 of 2017 ICCF Mizuno:

    "Place the electrodes in the reactor. The reactant metal is degassed initially at room temperature. This is to avoid the formation of an oxide film
    or nitride fiom that would be strengthened by the in-system gas when it is processed at high temperature, so that the subsequent activation
    treatment becomes difficult."

    Did Deneum do this?

    Quote from RobertBryant

    Later when procedures are standardised

    mass spec may show that following certain pressure/temp regimes yields 100% nitride/oxide etc removal routinely

    then a mass spec may not be needed


    I do not anticipate that will ever happen. If anything, people will need purpose-built instruments to improve this experiment. If the technology is ever commercialized, it will be done with specialized machines that incorporate mass spectrometers, SEM and other high tech gadgets, similar to semiconductor fabrication equipment. Such machines cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It seems likely to me that cold fusion fabrication machinery will also cost this much. That is what Ed Storms predicts, based on his nan-crack theory of how cold fusion works. He predicts machines will fabricate the cracks in an optimized configuration. The high cost of the machinery does not mean cold fusion devices will be expensive. It just means they will have to be mass produced to come down in cost. Of course they will be mass produced, because there will be a tremendous demand for them.


    Perhaps the fabrication equipment will be somewhat simpler and cheaper, resembling this LED light fabrication machine:


    http://tianhong-automation.com/product_show.asp?Id=235


    The Mizuno device is a vacuum tube somewhat similar to a light bulb.


    I think there is zero possibility that anyone will ever make an experimental cold fusion device at home, without sophisticated laboratory equipment and skill in the art. The idea that people might make commercial devices at home or in small, low tech factory strikes me about as plausible as making Intel compatible microprocessors in your backyard.

    Quote from dartin

    That is why anyone expecting to perform this experiment in one week is operating in the wrong time frame. Plan to purge many times and

    From p. 2 of 2017 ICCF Mizuno:


    Yes. Sometimes you only need to purge once or twice, but as I said, sometimes it has to repeated many times. I have heard from other researchers that some samples and some reactors never seem to get clean.


    This is why you need a mass spec. To see whether another purge is called for.


    As I mentioned, in the Supplement I added a letter from Mizuno to a researcher describing how to treat a prepared mesh that was sent through the mail. The methods of cleaning it, or re-cleaning it, seem a little aggressive to me. I wonder if they might damage the Pd layer. I advised the researcher to start by doing a complete SEM and element analysis, and maybe reserving a small piece of mesh.

    Totally agree with the instrumentation logic-you simply can't work blind with something as complex and unpredictable as this. Mind you, Severiano Ballesteros was so skint that he learned to play golf to a decent standard with one iron and a putter! :)

    I think that maybe the reckoning that production machinery will cost hundreds of millions is a bit premature. Going by TM's logarithmic excess heat plot, I can see a reactor producing 100Kw not needing to be that big. As has been said, the thing that's good about his reactor is its simplicity. The only expensive kit that will always be needed to monitor it is mass spec. But if you are mass producing and ordering them in numbers, you will have a lot of buying clout. And it will put emphasis on making a lot cheaply, rather than one-at-a-time as they sell for big bucks. Then you can monitor all of them on the net with a few pcs looking for the early signs of trouble.


    For now, the main thing is replication, then trying to get better control of the vital loading phase. I keep searching the literature for someone as bright as Kim who has found a way to charge it, like by some kind of emr. The later Mizuno method of thermal cycling seems to have brought this phase on, but this does seem to be the tricky one that still needs work.

    Quote from StevieH

    PS a complete elemental analysis of TM's rod is still something I'd like to see, just in case we have to really get down to the basics to replicate this. Rh seems to be potentially a key minor ingredient. Possible even a few ppm.


    I will see if we can arrange this. It might be possible to do this with the prepared meshes that Mizuno sent to a researcher. Perhaps they can look at a fragment of Pd adhered to the Ni.


    He plans to send out more, but I do not know when. He is very busy.

    Quote from StevieH

    I think that maybe the reckoning that production machinery will cost hundreds of millions is a bit premature. Going by TM's logarithmic excess heat plot, I can see a reactor producing 100Kw not needing to be that big.


    The size of the cold fusion devices is not the issue. I suppose they will be no larger than the 7,104 battery cells in a Tesla. However, especially if Ed Storms is correct, the individual cold fusion devices will have to be manufactured to microscopic specifications and microscopic levels of purity, similar to the way semiconductor devices are manufactured. That does not mean they will be expensive. They will not be as complicated as semiconductors, and if several of the nano-cracks don't work, that will not matter. Whereas if several transistors on a microprocessor fail, you have to toss out the device.


    Even if they are somewhat expensive at first, I expect they will work for many years, so the overall cost per kilowatt-hour will be very low.

    The only issue I see with the long term running of these is what type of tolerance they will have for the He. Things that produce stuff are often only tolerant to a modest level before they get poisoned. Also, it seems that once the He forms in the micro sites, it seems reluctant to come out. I can see the need to remove the gas on a semi continuous basis and purify it. Ironically Pd should do that too, at high temp you can use it like a filter paper due to its affinity for H2-like species over others.


    Still, that's a bit in the future yet. Mind you, my experience is in development, and once this is replicated, I can see it being brought on fairly quickly.

    Get that Alan, it's just that I was reading a paper that said that the Kim-modified B-E (condensate)-ion trap that makes the energy barrier easy to overcome by trapping a lot of particles in a condensate type situation... also tends to hang on to the He when it has de-energised in the lattice. Trying to get it all out for analysis purposes, they were on about baking it at 1300C, and still not getting it all out- next stage raise the temperature beyond 1300! Don't know how relevant that is, it was just a bit disturbing when I read it. It may have been in nano powder though.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    However, especially if Ed Storms is correct, the individual cold fusion devices will have to be manufactured to microscopic specifications and microscopic levels of purity,......


    As stated before, I think it fruitful to consider theory at the same time as replication and this is possibly a good example.


    Is there existing knowledge or anyone's theory on why the reactor has to be so completely degassed? How does minute amounts of nitrogen or some other element stop all LENR reactions in the reactor? In chemical applications, it is quite somewhat easy to calculate the chemical reactions... the amount of moles of various gas and construct a theory on "X" amount of oxygen will oxidize "Y" amount of PD etc.


    However, this appears not to be a chemical reaction but a nuclear one. Why then we should ask, would some very trace elements squash a reaction? I would not think ionic or valence shell based. It is not too early to start theorizing on this. As replicators start recording mass spec readings, log the results and the compare with reaction results. It might be possible to see not only which elements are negative to success, but what proportions. This could all be very useful in both developing theory and making replications more consistent.


    Jed has stated that not having a mass spec is working completely blind. Not starting to develop a theory on why minute amounts of "contamination" is also somewhat working blind. I.E. If one simply states that "ALL" elemental "contamination" must be removed, this thinking could result in removing an element that is really indeed needed!


    We certainly need replication, but just as seen in F&P's case, if it cannot be replicated somewhat at will or with truly known parameters, then it will probably remain very suspect in mainstream circles. If millions of dollars are needed to develop it, it is going to have to become accepted to a great extent. This will require some theory.

    • Official Post
    Quote from StevieH

    Trying to get it all out for analysis purposes, they were on about baking it at 1300C, and still not getting it all out- next stage raise the temperature beyond 1300!

    I'm not going there! A more complicated but less destructive method of squeezing out He along with the D2 might be reverse electrolysis of the active fuel with capture of the evolved gases..

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